Tell Me One Thing by Deena Goldstone

I was alive only for those hours I spent with Miguel.”
    There’s something about this Jamie doesn’t like, but he doesn’t say anything, simply nods as she continues to tell the story.
    As if Ellen were reading his thoughts, something they would often do as children, she quickly says, “And he was kind to me. He filled my little apartment with flowers, day after day, week after week, and then he began to buy me things. He had a set of dining room chairs delivered to my apartment.”
    “Did you need dining room chairs?”
    “No, but he said the ones I had weren’t comfortable and if he was going to have dinner with me every night, he wanted to be comfortable. And then he began to buy me clothes and jewelry. He’d take me to really expensive restaurants so I could wear the dress or the shawl or the jade earrings that he’d just bought me and he would tell me how beautiful I looked.
    “When he asked me to move in with him, there seemed to be no other answer but ‘Yes, of course, I love you, of course I will.’ ”
    “How long had you known him?” Jamie asks.
    “Two months.”
    “Did you bring the dining room chairs?”
    “Very funny, Jamie, and the answer is no. I left them with the apartment along with everything else I had acquired since I had moved to Malaga. It didn’t matter. They were just things. You’ve got to understand, I couldn’t believe my luck. I had gone to Spain to change my life, and here was proof that I’d been right. I had a man who loved me, who treated me like I was a prize. I had done it. I had escaped the O’Connor curse.”
    “How long did that feeling last?”
    “Okay, I know you want me to cut to the chase, but you need to believe that we had something that people long for all their lives.”
    “I get it, Ellen, but you’re not telling me this story because it all stayed that way, are you?”
    “No.”
    “When did it turn bad?”
    “I don’t know.”
    He snorts. “Weren’t you there? How can you not know?”
    “Stop being such a prick and I’ll tell you.”
    “Okay,” Jamie says, a bit chagrined. “Sorry.”
    “It started so quietly I wasn’t even aware of what was going on. His daily phone calls became sort of ‘Where are you? What are you doing?’ instead of ‘I miss you. I can’t stop thinking about you.’ Do you see the difference?”
    “He was checking up on you.”
    “Yes! But would you have recognized that right away?” Jamie shrugs and Ellen shakes her head at her own gullibility. “Well, I didn’t. Then he began to say things like ‘I don’t like you in that dress, wear the green one I bought you.’ And I’d think, ‘What difference does it make?’ And I’d go and change into the dress he liked.… Then he began to tell me my friends were boring and we’d only go out together if we were seeing his friends. He said I could see my friends during the day. But I didn’t. Somehow, because Miguel didn’t like them, I wasn’t interested in seeing them.”
    “Tracy, too?” Jamie asks.
    “Not at the beginning, but when it got bad, then, yes, I cut Tracy out of my life, too.”
    “When did it get bad, Ellen?” Jamie asks quietly.
    “When I quit my job.”
    “Because he wanted you to?”
    “Because he told me to. He made a lot of money and he hadfamily money, and after we’d been together for about a year, he told me that my job was getting in the way of our life together. He wanted me to travel with him. He wanted me at home when he got home. What did I do all day at my job that was so important? Nothing, I realized, it wasn’t important. Miguel was what was important.… So I quit my job.”
    Ellen won’t meet Jamie’s eyes as she tells him, “And then I became his prisoner. He set new rules—I had to call him before I left the apartment and when I got home, the minute I got home. If he didn’t like where I said I was going, he told me to stay home. I began to lie to him so I could go out, and when he found out I was lying,